Earlier this year, the U.S. Department of Transportation called on various transportation industries, including trucking, to provide information about ongoing supply chain disruptions for a report to be submitted to President Joe Biden.
More than 400 comments were submitted between Sept. 16 through Oct. 18. Under an executive order issued by Biden in February, DOT Secretary Pete Buttigieg is required to submit, within a year of the order, a report to the President on supply chains for the transportation industrial base. Comments received on this information request will be used in that report.
Trucking groups including the Owner-Operator Independent Drivers Association, National Association of Small Trucking Companies, American Trucking Associations and others submitted their comments to answer a number of questions posed by DOT in the information request.
Trucking groups focused on many of the topics that are often brought up as issues in the industry that impede the movement of freight, including detention time, insufficient truck parking facilities, infrastructure investment, independent contractor status issues and more.
“While global supply shortages have recently forced some truckers off the road due to regulatory processing delays and difficulties finding replacement parts for faulty equipment, the current crisis is not due to a shortage of truck drivers,” OOIDA said in its comments. “Because the real bottlenecks in the supply chain occur at pickup and delivery points, adding more trucks and drivers will simply make lines longer, not faster.”
The group added that DOT should prioritize “resolving the underlying circumstances that have led to excessive driver turnover. We support the administration’s efforts to improve the quality of trucking jobs, but this must start with treating drivers as essential workers which means valuing and compensating them for all of their time.”
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